


i am the walrus

by floweryfran



Series: my girl(s) [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Hurt Peter Parker, IronDad and SpiderSon, Irondad, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, absolute shameless crack, irondad and spider-son, the beatles and john mulaney are alluded to like biblical allegory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23169559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: “That was pretty badass. Right, Karen?” says Peter. He needs Karen’s wholehearted emotional bolstering right now.“The lavender is growing nicely this kumquat,”she says.Peter blinks. “Um.”
Relationships: Peter Parker & Karen, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: my girl(s) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659547
Comments: 84
Kudos: 493
Collections: fluffy marvel fics (primarily irondad)





	i am the walrus

_“Peter,”_ chirps the sweet voice in his ears. _“This is your reminder that it is now fifteen minutes to eleven PM. You must begin returning to the tower now in order to honor your curfew.”_

“Aw, man,” Peter says, looking at the last, shining red dot on his HUD, hovering over a bank only two blocks away. A routine robbery. “Eighteen years old and I still got a curfew. What kinda’ bogus system— actually, not _that_ bogus, I almost die _so much.”_

_“That is true,”_ Karen says. _“You seem to have more near-death experiences than eighty-three percent of the Varsity Avengers.”_

“Only eighty-three? Who’s the one who almost dies more than me? Wait— let me— Hawkeye. Definitely Hawkeye.”

_“Correct,”_ Karen says. 

Peter snorts, then shakes his head. He scratches his chin, wrinkling his brows beneath the mask. “What if I knock this last one out really fast? Like, super-speed?”

_“The likelihood of being able to accomplish that is low, even for you.”_

“Well, what would happen if I _try?”_

_“I would alert Mister Stark to your attempt and he would handle it as he sees fit.”_

“Karen, that is big tattle-tale energy you are exuding,” Peter says.

_“That’s a bummer, Peter.”_

“You’re a bummer, Kay,” Peter says. Then, almost immediately after, “I’m kidding, I’m so kidding, that was so mean you’re the _best_ Karen, you’re a party animal, you’re so fun.”

_“Whoop whoop,”_ Karen says. A confetti burst takes over the HUD and a soft party-blower sound effect plays. 

“I loved that,” Peter says. “Keep that. Tell Tony I love party mode. Scrap instant kill; have him make a disco ball that comes out of the top of my head like a fancy hat. That’ll throw the criminals off their rhythm. Street smarts!” 

Peter taps his fingertips against his thigh, listening to the soft clink of the metal enrobing him. The starlight deepens the navy of his suit and he feels as if the sky has dripped onto him, that he is cradled by the cosmos. It’s a rather invincible feeling. 

“Karen,” Peter says offhandedly, “activate _my hearing aid died_ mode.” 

His HUD flashes blue as it takes one last biometric scan, confirming his identity while glowing far too brightly in his eyes. 

_“Activated,”_ says Karen before she mutes herself, his suit now untraceable. 

“Sweet,” says Peter. 

He leans forward onto his toes, squints over the edge of the rooftop, and leaps, flying-squirrel style. The wind buoys him, carries him on its breath, and he soars, a grin cutting across his face. He fires a web and his arm pulls taut, his shoulder burns, and he fires another, pulling himself forward with his other arm, turning eastward, his legs coming up towards his chest, craving velocity like Clyde Barrow in his rickety model-T, the ache of exertion spreading evenly across his back like a curled cat. 

“Yoo-hoo,” Peter calls as he drops feet-first through the already-smashed bank window. A shot of pure ice slips up his spine and he goes hard onto the ground behind a teller’s desk, laying on his chest, raised on his elbows. Bullets rain over him, the air warm and wild and windy. “That’s no way to greet a pal,” Peter says. “Only a real shmendrik points a gun at you the night before your daughter’s wedding.”

“Christ,” comes a voice. “Fuckin’ Spider-Man. This was supposed to be in and out, boss.”

“It will be,” someone else grumbles, and Peter thinks they’re stupid, because now he knows exactly where they both are. Voice tracking. A miracle. 

The third and fourth heartbeats are even easier to place, because they’re advancing towards him like clumsy jaguars towards prey. Peter waits until they’re in a suitable position before leaping straight up and firing a web at each of them in tandem, pulling hard towards himself. They bump heads as Peter lands back in his hiding spot behind the teller’s desk. The webbing winds around the criminals and they fall, tangled together. 

“You idiots,” says one of the other two. “Bastard’s got eight eyes. Sees all.”

“Hey,” Peter complains. “I ain’t got eight eyes, bucko,” he inches towards the edge of the desk, catches another glimpse of their positions in the remaining window glass, “but I got eight ideas of where you can stick those guns that’ll do you a lotta’ good in the long run.” 

“Oh yeah?” says one. 

“Yeah,” Peter says, “namely, up yours.” And Peter leaps, flinging a web at the ceiling, which sticks to the edge of a hanging light. He swings forward, the light swinging with him, closing his eyes and letting his sixth sense prompt his movements. A spray of bullets barrages him but he evades and kicks his legs out in time to knock the third man over, webbing him to the tile. 

Peter drops into a roll, then, and feels pretty damn good about the fact that he’s only got one guy left. 

The feeling dissipates as soon as the guy trades his handgun for something that looks military-grade, hefty and long with a scope and a barrel girthy enough to shoot out a papaya. 

“What the heck,” Peter says. 

The thing fires, and Peter dodges what seems to be a shot of pure, focused energy. Like gravity, but fast. And likely painful. _Grave_ ity. 

Peter flips out of the way. “Dude, that thing is badass,” he sings, “but keep it _away from meee.”_

“Jesus fuckin’ tits,” says the man, rolling to dodge a shot of webbing. 

Peter stops looking where he shoots, trusting himself. And it works, mostly, until an energy blast hits the remaining intact window he’d aimed for just as his web begins to stick. Peter gets thrown, trying to bring his free arm up around his head to protect himself from getting brained, and, like nothing and everything, a follow-up blast from the gun hits him square in the center of the chest, sending him rolling over himself, plastering him to the tile. 

His ribs crack and the air presses from his lungs all while his HUD powers off completely in one fell swoop. He lands hard with a grunt, gasping, his palms scrabbling for traction, glass from the window crinkling under his chest. 

“Shit!” one of them yells. “You killed Spider-Man! My daughter is gonna’ be so pissed!”

“Not dead,” Peter wheezes. “Not— not dead.” His HUD powers back on, but he sees immediately that his biometric scanners are malfunctioning and Karen is struggling to reboot. “Owie.” 

He closes his eyes and fires two lucky shots from his webshooters, the strain of raising his arms even a few inches causing his entire torso to erupt in stinging pain. 

He stoppers the mouth of the scary gun and goos the chest of the man holding it. Based on the noise he makes, Peter assumes he’s bowled over and stuck to the tile ground. 

He opens his eyes to check, and sees he nailed it. 

“Fuck,” says the man. 

“That was pretty badass. Right, Karen?” says Peter. He needs Karen’s wholehearted emotional bolstering right now. 

_“The lavender is growing nicely this kumquat,”_ she says. 

Peter blinks. “Um.”

_“It seems the butterfly farm is selling twine wax paper.”_

Peter says, “can you still get a message to the police?”

_“Seventy-six trombones led the big parade,”_ Karen sings. 

A notification in the corner of Peter’s screen shows a thumbs-up emoji from his contact in the NYPD. 

He says a quick _baruch hashem_ and probes his ribs through his suit, unable to feel anything specific due to the layer of metal but experiencing an overwhelming sensation of ouch. 

“Can you scan me?” Peter tries, teeth gritted. “Check my ribs?”

_“Last rainstorm was Dora the Conqueror’s armada.”_ On his screen appear the words, _cracks in third and fourth ribs on left side and seventh rib on right side._

“So it’s just your verbal processors,” Peter says. 

_“Mister City policeman sitting, pretty little policemen in a row,”_ Karen sings. 

“Oh _no,”_ says Peter. 

“The fuck are you talking to?” says one of the criminals. 

“Mind your own business,” says Peter. “You have the right to remain silent and I’m _literally_ begging you to use it.” 

Peter struggles into a sitting position, breathing in the stunted way he assumes someone in labor might. “Ahhh,” he says. “Alrighty, Spidey, let’s bounce. Let’s— cab. Yep. Tonight is a cab night for sure.” 

Peter grabs the edge of the table nearest him and pulls his way up slowly, murmuring a steady stream of curses as he does. “Shitballs,” he says, “Christ on a cracker, fucking nuts, ass ass ass.”

“Someone oughta teach you to cuss properly,” says one of the criminals. “It’s a fine art. Let me go and I’ll do it, free of charge.” 

Peter, with one trembling hand bracing his core, flips him the bird. 

_“Sitting on… a cornflake,”_ Karen mumbles tinnily. 

He drags his way onto the sidewalk and is more disappointed than surprised to see a red meteor hurtling towards him at fucking warp-speed. 

Tony lands steadily and crosses his metal arms almost immediately. 

Peter stares at the face of the mask. 

Tony has drawn on a pair of angry eyebrows with Expo marker. 

Peter’s brain short-circuits. 

“Sorry,” he says, then he makes a sound like Elmo’s laugh but through the throat of a chain smoker. “What is— sorry, I know, curfew, I did it knowingly, you’ve got the right to be angry, but my ribs are broken and Karen is speaking the way a six year old writes poetry and I want to cry or sleep or both at once but definitely at least one, as soon as possible.” His voice cracks on the last word.

Tony’s mask retracts and he looks much less angry. Worried, mostly. And tired. He appraises Peter for a long moment. Then says, “c’mon, squirt.” He holds an arm out. “Iron Man Express. All aboard.”

Peter says, “just like that? No angry?”

Tony tilts a hand side to side. “Little angry. Forgive though.”

“Oh, thank frickin’ goodness,” says Peter, and he slumps painfully forward, leaning against Tony’s metal shoulder with a grunt. 

Tony’s arms wind around him delicately, his faceplate comes down, and they’re airborne. 

~

“I’m literally baffled,” Tony says. “I have no idea what is going on. I am absolutely flabbergasted, to my deepest, blue-lit core.”

“You don’t even have the arc reactor anymore, Tony,” Peter says. He’s in sweats now, reclined on the couch in the corner of the lab, Tony on the opposite side of the room with the Iron Spider plugged into a computer. Peter is groggy and a bit heavy from the painkillers Tony practically shoved down his throat while flitting about the medbay, wrapping Peter’s ribs and worrying himself grey. A veritable mountain of ice packs dampens Peter’s sweatshirt, now, and he feels the vague prickliness in his chest that signifies his cracked bones are sealing themselves up. “What blue is there without it? Algae? Did you swallow bioluminescent algae? Why would you do that? You can’t even use the health excuse for that. That’s just stupidity. Big dumb-dumb move.”

Tony squints at Peter, puzzled. “I will never understand you.” 

Peter grins a little. 

_“I am the egg man,”_ says Karen. 

“No you’re not,” says Tony. 

_“They are the egg man.”_

“No, still— no.”

_“I am the walrus. Goo goo g’joob.”_

“Are you trying to tell me it’s not _coo coo kachew?”_ Peter says. 

“I think it’s up to interpretation,” Tony says, scratching his eyebrow with the tip of a screwdriver. 

“Hmm,” says Peter. 

The room is quiet for a moment. 

_“Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye,”_ Karen sings. 

_“Blablablabla bloobla, pornagraphic priestess, boy you’ve been a hmmmhmmhm, you somethin’ somethin’ some,”_ Peter continues. 

“Oh have mercy,” says Tony. 

_“I am the egg man,”_ Peter sings. 

_“They are the egg man,”_ Karen sings. 

A moment. 

_“I am the walrus,”_ Tony sings begrudgingly. 

_“Goo goo g’joob!”_ Peter and Karen sing joyfully. 

Tony shakes his head and looks at Peter fondly. “Brat,” he says, the same way some people say _gee, I love you._

Peter blows him a kiss. Tony pretends to blow it further away from himself. 

Peter continues to hum under his breath as Tony fiddles. It doesn’t take long before Tony says, “son of a gun. Found the problem. She’ll be back up in no time.” 

“Thank goodness,” Peter says. “I don’t know how much more of this song I can take without finally being embarrassed by how little I know.” 

Tony prods something that sends sparks spurting into his face. 

_“Umpa, umpa, stick it up your jumper,”_ Karen says. 

“Shit,” says Tony. 

“Shit,” says Peter. 

“Choose another song,” says Tony. “Any other. How about some AC/DC. FRIDAY can teach you.”

_“I know a lot of AC/DC,”_ FRIDAY chirps. 

_“Hello, FRIDAY,”_ says Karen, and Peter groans in relief, slumping flat onto the couch, smashing a pillow over his face. 

“Karen, never leave me again,” he says. 

_“Peter!”_ Karen says. _“Would you like me to play a song to celebrate my repair? I have downloaded the full discography of The Beatles, as it seems their music increases your serotonin levels significantly!”_

Peter says, “Karen, I love you, but please don’t sing.” 

_“Aw,”_ she says. 

Peter’s stomach rolls. 

He pulls the pillow from his face and looks at Tony. 

Tony winces. 

Peter keeps staring. 

Tony’s expression drops into something mournful. 

Peter keeps staring. 

“Karen,” says Tony. “Karen, baby, we changed our mind. We’re fickle, fickle beasts. Sing for us.”

A moment. 

_“I am he as you are he as you are me,”_ she sings. 

Peter croons, _“and we are all together.”_

Tony says, “G-d help me.” 

Peter can’t help but grin because he’s versed enough in Tony Speak to know that means _thank G-d for that._

**Author's Note:**

> THIS IS LOVING KAREN HOURS 
> 
> i started this at 2:30 am it’s now 4:20 am and we ain’t sleeping tonight 🤠
> 
> who do we want next in this series, folks?? lmk!! 
> 
> as always please leave a comment or a spare kudos if u feel like it; they’re my sole source of serotonin
> 
> i love you like peter loves his gals


End file.
